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Why Unfinished Business Always Pops in Your Mind

Brain, Goals, Happiness at Work, Motivation / By My Holland

Before reading this, try to recall all the tasks you accomplished in the last five days. There’s a great chance you won’t remember all. Now, think of all the things that you left undone. But maybe you don’t have to because these keep popping in your head. And these might be causing stress right now. It’s not just tasks. How often have you stopped reading a book or watching a movie before the end? Yes, people love stories. But, they want to get to the conclusion as not knowing can drive them crazy. What can explain this behavior? Well, have you ever heard of the Zeigarnik Effect? a psychologist, postulated that incomplete tasks were easier to remember than completed ones. These remain in people’s conscious minds because they cause mental tension. It’s no wonder you recall unfinished business repeatedly. Not all experts agree on the effect, as more research has to be done. One of the questions is whether this is good or bad. But, everyone can agree that when you experience it, there are ways to deal with it. Here are three: Accomplish your tasks promptly. It’s relative for each person. Many jobs cannot be done by the end of a day. But, by completing small chunks daily, you finish the whole sooner. People put off working on tasks until the last minute. In short, they procrastinate. Everyone does. If you want to ease stress, begin working on your tasks ASAP. And, why not reward yourself when you accomplish something. It could be a glass of that expensive wine you’ve been saving. Use the Effect for your Benefit. If the Zeigarnik Effect is real, use it to help you. For instance, if you’re preparing for a presentation, forget cramming all that information in one sitting. Instead, divide these into smaller portions. Focus on each and take breaks. Then move on to the next one. You’ll realize you retain more data because your brain tells you that your presentation isn’t complete. Maybe you could use it in your job? Ads and movie trailers are good examples. Marketers use story-telling to get customers to stay tuned. Use it as Motivation. Maybe you have an alarm clock or use your smartphone to wake you up. You won’t believe it, but these regularize your sleeping behavior. Treat the Zeigarnik Effect as an alarm to attend to unfinished business. If you want that internal reminder to go silent, finish whatever you started. Instead of bugging your mind, treat the effect as motivation.

Why To-Do Lists are Good for You

Brain, Goals, Happiness at Work, Productivity / By My Holland

Post-it notes have become part of people’s lives. You’ll find it everywhere – on desks, the fridge, walls and doors. These are constant reminders of all the tasks that need to be done. Whether it’s not to forget to buy milk on the way home or pay bills, people are helped a lot by little pieces of paper. It’s not just Post-it notes. Others use memo pads, diaries and even their digital devices as reminders. Unfortunately, they can be overwhelmed by too many of these. But did you know that these can significantly help reduce anxiety and accomplish tasks. >> You achieve clarity Writing down or typing tasks give you a clearer picture of what needs to be done. When you do, you often realize that it’s mostly small stuff. The human brain can create mountains out of molehills. Remember, a small rock can cast a large shadow. It makes a difference when people focus on the former and not the latter. When people specify, the job ahead becomes more effortless. Or, if a task is too big, breaking it into smaller chunks makes it more manageable. But write or again, type these down. >> You prioritize What needs to be done now or today? Itemizing tasks can help you determine which are urgent and not. This also enables you to focus on one task at a time. Tests have shown a to-do list helps people. Try this out? Think of all the tasks you need to accomplish and often, you’ll forget one or several. Also, you can’t possibly sort your mental list according to importance. Now, try writing these on paper. Wouldn’t you agree, there’s a vast difference? >> You can schedule Some people get rid of simple tasks that don’t require effort and thinking. This is because it takes them time to warm up. Others, they like to handle challenging jobs first thing in the morning. With a to-do list, you can schedule which tasks to accomplish first. You can even set a time for checking on your social media accounts. Doing so will allow you to achieve more during the day. >> You Get a Sense of Achievement Every time you check or cross out a task on your to-do list, you feel a sense of accomplishment. This is important because you become more motivated and engaged in whatever job you need to do. There’s nothing wrong with feeling proud. In fact, it has positive effects on your health too. So start working on your to-do lists. These can make your life a bit easier.

Women Stay Mentally Sharp Longer Than Men

Brain / By My Holland

Before you guys start ganging up on me, take a look at what the experts have found out about the subject in several studies. Scientists have observed that women who are generally healthy have a “metabolic brain age” that is consistently younger than men of the same chronological age. What this finding indicates is that the changes and variations that occur when the brain uses energy over a person’s lifetime actually proceed more gradually in women than they do in men. While the research guys are clueless as to its medical consequences and implications, they say that this may help explain why, mentally, healthy females tend to stay sharp longer than males, Marcus Raichle, a neurobiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says … brain metabolism changes with age. But his group of researchers also noticed that these changes boiled down to gender. In other words, when they started looking into how brain metabolism predicts a person’s age, the women came out looking about four years younger than they really are. How did they do it? – What the scientists did was to apply a brain-scanning approach called “Position Emission Tomography”. It measured the flow of oxygen and glucose to the brains of one hundred twenty-one (121) women and eighty-four (84) men aged 20-82. This scanning technique showed how sugar was being converted into energy in the various parts of the respondents’ brains. In infants and young kids, this process known as Aerobic Glycolysis is increased by nature to grow and develop the children’s brains. This is scaled down however as they become adolescents and young men and women and it goes down steadily till it reaches a real low level when they reach their sixties. To see how this brain metabolism differed between the sexes, the researchers used a computer algorithm leading to the prediction of the respondents’ ages using their brain scans. So, what came out? The program estimated the men’s ages accurately. But it showed the women’s brains, on average, to be three-point eight (3.8) years younger than their real ages. Medically, the researches don’t know exactly what this means and intend to pursue further research on the subject. For now, they can only speculate that perhaps, low glucose metabolism in certain parts of the brain becomes more prone to memory loss and neurodegenerative diseases as a person gets older.

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